Usually, after humans die, muscles of their body cavities become flaccid so that waste materials in the body cavities often leak out. Further, because of intravenous drip during medical treatment in life, the bodies after death often contain a large amount of body fluids. In particular, as for a body cavity in their low bodies, i.e., the anus, the anal muscle is relaxed to open the anus, resulting in leakage of internal waste materials. Furthermore, if they are female, the vaginal cavities often leak out a large amount of body fluids. To prevent these leakages, the anus and vaginal cavity is filled with a huge amount of absorbent cotton before the occurrence of postmortem rigidity.
Such work is often carried out by a nurse. Not only the work is troublesome and unsanitary but also the worker at work may be infected with germs or viruses from the leaked substances. Therefore, there is a strong need to surely prevent such infection. Traditional countermeasures to the infection, however, are not good in terms of feasibility.
For example, a diaper is used in many cases in order to prevent leakage of internal waste materials in cavities of parts of a corpse, particularly, in cavities of the lower body such as the anus or vaginal cavity. In these cases, the diaper cannot fully prevent the leakage of waste materials, leading to contamination due to leakage. In addition, the nurse inevitably contacts the waste materials during diaper cleaning for replacement. For these reasons, if the body is a germ carrier, those around may be infected.
Techniques are known which eliminate the above problems and prevent leakage of internal substances in corpse lower body cavities, such as the anus or vaginal cavity, and in which body cavity sealing members are directly inserted into lower body cavities, such as the rectum or vaginal cavity. (See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 2001-161733 and 2003-111830)
As shown in FIG. 20, the body cavity sealing member in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-161733 is designed so that a plug part (101) is inserted into the anus, a gas injector (Y) is then inserted into an opening (108) located at a joint (A) between the plug part (101) and an anus abutment member (102) and the plug part (101) is charged with gas. The gas flows from the inside of the plug part (101) through a gas guide hole (106) to open a non-return valve (107), is fed to an control chamber (105) and expands the control chamber (105). Thus, a flexible member (104) comes into tight contact with the inner wall of the anus to seal the anus. Reference numeral 112 denotes a lubricant layer.
As shown in FIGS. 21 and 22, the body cavity sealing member 200 in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-111830 is composed of a columnar superabsorbent fiber molded object 201, a water-soluble sheet 202 sheathing the molded object 201, and a lubricant 203 covering the sheet 202. The body cavity sealing member 200 has one end tapered to facilitate its insertion. The superabsorbent fiber molded object 201 disclosed in the publication is made of water-swellable fibers (trade name: LANSEAL®F manufactured by Toyobo Co., Ltd.) of double-layer structure that has an inner layer made of an acrylic fiber serving as a core and a superabsorbent outer layer placed to surround the inner layer and processed to swell after absorbing water. The surface of the superabsorbent fiber molded object 201 is wrapped in a thin water-soluble sheet. The body cavity sealing member 200 is enveloped in a bag 204 made of a protective covering material.